After all
by Selective scifi junkie
Summary: After the opera singer and the rest have left, Bates wonders at his wife's behaviour. Headfic, spoilers for season 4 episode 3. Should be lower rated than the episode. Second chapter (again, Bate's headfic, during 4.5) now up. Listed as complete because I expect Julian Fellowes to finish this plot. I am merely augmenting it, though I may continue to do so.
1. Chapter 1

**As you may have guessed from my name, this is a far cry from my usual repertoire. However, I have watched Downton Abbey since it began and loved it.**

**This fic contains implicit spoilers for episode three, season four. The episode affected me deeply, I have always been very fond of Anna. I felt I had to write to clear my head.**

After all

He didn't catch up with her on the walk back. That wasn't surprising, Anna could walk faster than he could, she wasn't lame. What was surprising, now that he thought about it, was that she didn't wait. Unless one of them told the other _not_ to wait, they walked to and from the house together, morning and evening, every day. It was time nobody could take from them, not much time, but they always had it, no matter what the day had been or would be. For Anna to give that time up, just because she "felt like walking on her own" was surprising.

It was also surprising that Anna'd been taken ill like that. He hadn't thought much of it when she'd gone down, loud noise would give anyone a headache if it went on for long enough, after all. Anna was hardy, though, he'd only known her to take sick once or twice in ten years – had it really been that long? - now that he thought about it. He'd never known her to faint. For her to faint so suddenly that she hadn't even had time to lower herself in to a chair, or the ground at least, that she'd hit her head on the sink falling, and hard enough to leave quite a mark, put her out for quite a while and, somehow, mark her dress beyond repair, that was surprising.

But, John thought, maybe he wouldn't have thought about any of it if she hadn't pulled away like that. He'd reached out to take her hand and she'd recoiled, as though from a snake, almost run from him. She'd never done that before. In all the time they'd been married, and for quite a while before, if ever, he couldn't remember her recoiling like that. He saw that moment as he approached their cottage, over and over again, the look on her face, that flicker of something he hadn't seen there before. He couldn't put a word to it, but that moment had made him think that something was wrong. Looking back over the evening, it was increasingly clear that something was wrong, badly wrong, something that went deeper than a headache and a fainting fit after all.

The cottage was dark inside.  
"Anna?" Her eyes were strong, sometimes she put herself to bed without a light, still able to find everything, though she had to help him. But there was no reply. Had she fainted again here, or worse, by the road, and he'd missed her in the dark. John near ran to the kitchen, he needed light. There were matches in the drawer. He lit one, fumbling in the dark, and put it to a lamp. He swept the kitchen with his eyes, hoping and dreading that he'd see her slumped somewhere. But she wasn't here. Stick in one hand, lamp aloft in the other, he set off again, searching the house.

There she was, lying in their bed, curled on her side, her left side. That was unusual. She usually slept on her back or her right side, so she faced him. She made no sign of having heard him, she was already asleep. Perhaps she was just ill after all, illness makes everyone tired. John set the lamp down and got ready for bed, hanging his livery in its usual place, Anna's wasn't there of course, but neither was the dress Mrs. Hughes had lent her. He looked around for it. It was draped across the back of a chair. That was odd. Anna took care of her clothes, ladies' maids, like valets, generally seemed to, and that dress didn't even belong to her. He'd have thought she'd have hung it up and brushed it down. Maybe she'd just been too tired. She was sound asleep if the lamp and his wandering about the room hadn't woken her. He crossed the room for it and hung it in place of her livery

John got in to bed, trying not to disturb her. An owl called outside somewhere. He lay back. There was no sound in the house but Anna's breathing and his own. His breaths slowing, deepening, hers shallow, halting, as though she was holding them. It was that, in the end, that made him think that something was wrong, very wrong indeed. She'd been pretending all the time he'd been home. Anna was not asleep after all.


	2. Chapter 2

**I had no intention of extending this fic, but I was asked to and a couple of seconds of performance from Brendan Coyle gave me ample material. There may be a third if I see more to make me write.**

John Bates limped out of Mrs. Hughes office. Even his good leg was shaking as he put his weight on it. He was breathing hard, but he kept walking, forbidding his leg to fail. The comforting normality of the kitchen sounds receded behind him, Mrs. Hughe's words growing louder in his head every stride.

He stopped and leant against a wall once he was far enough away from the activity to feel that he would not be discovered. He didn't want anyone to see him at this moment, not even Anna.

Anna. Poor, sweet Anna, how had he not seen it? How had he not known? And to think he'd half suspected her of adultery half an hour before, since Mrs. Hughe's mention of a baby. Adultery! How could he have thought that Anna, his Anna, could have ever…

His Anna. What she'd suffered, and suffered in silence… He'd failed her, completely and utterly. He'd been absent when she'd needed him, with no better excuse than listening to a song. Cripple though he may be, anyone would think twice about attacking two where they'd thought to find one. He should have gone down with her, made sure she was alright. She'd have tended him in sickness, he should have been willing to do the same, they'd sworn as much. In sickness or in health. He raised one hand to his face.

Why hadn't he seen it? He was no stranger to… this, or to what it did to the women who were used so. It had happened often enough in the wars. When a camp was taken, the Boer women within had been used with impunity. Most officers had dealt harshly with any soldiers caught in the act, many lamenting that they could no longer flay the skin from their men's backs for it, but it didn't keep some from taking the risk. He'd seen more than one soldier pulled off a screaming, sobbing Boer girl and tied to a gun wheel. You could tell those girls afterwards. They were the ones that fled solitude and seemed to crave it, that flinched away from passing hands, that refused to look at anyone. The ones, at a word, that behaved as Anna had for the past month.

How had he even thought to believe her? A single fall could never have put all those marks on her head and chaffed both her hands, and probably done more she hadn't let him see. The man who'd… must have thrown her to the ground, at least once, and hit her in the face to subdue her. She must have screamed. Anna was as gentle a creature as he'd ever known, but she must have fought for all she was worth, and screamed as long as she had breath, hoping someone would hear her. But nobody came. And her dress, the fall could never have damaged it beyond repair. Anna had been a lady's maid for years, she was good at her job. That man, that animal, must have torn it from her body in pieces.

That man. A stranger who'd forced the door, then waited to force Anna. Coward. To break in to a house by night and wait like a leopard in the dark… He must have known about the concert, that the kitchen would be deserted. How? It didn't matter. What mattered was what he had done. The blackguard had violated Anna. If John ever found him, there would be nowhere on earth he could run.

But for now, he hadn't found the man. For now, all he could do was go to Anna as soon as she returned and make right with her, or try to. She might not want him anywhere near her, if the scars on her mind and body were still too raw. But he had to let her know that he would be there if she wanted him to be.


End file.
